Spiders Studio – VG247http://www.vg247.com
VG247.comFri, 09 Dec 2016 21:47:52 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.3New video for The Technomancer takes a look at companionshttp://www.vg247.com/2016/05/19/new-video-for-the-technomancer-takes-a-look-at-companions/
http://www.vg247.com/2016/05/19/new-video-for-the-technomancer-takes-a-look-at-companions/#respondThu, 19 May 2016 14:16:55 +0000https://www.vg247.com/?p=583609You will have companions traversing Mars alongside of you in The Technomancer. This new video gives you a look at them.

New video for The Technomancer takes a look at companions

Various companion interactions will bolster relationships with the NPCs and each has its own personality and will level up alongside of the player. Some will join up out of loyalty, others will tag along due to opportunities or “as a result of a chain of unfortunate events.”

Players can choose two companions at a time. Each have special talents in battle and various utility skills such as crafting, science or lockpicking. Companions picked will impact both the way the game is played and the storyline.

Due to each comrade having their own agenda or preoccupation, they may ask the player for favors or help. Should the player accept such requests, it will trigger “a special series of missions” which result in learning more about the companion’s past.

These missions add to the main story and provide extra hours of gameplay.

More information on companions, leveling their abilities, armor and more are outlined in the video.

The video gives you a look at gameplay, character customization options for Zachariah, and the four different skill trees which focus on three fighting styles players can choose and upgrade through progression.

Viewers also learn about fighting styles, and how changing stances in the middle of a fight can provide an advantage.

Throughout the game, players will visit various locations on Mars, and learn about some of the cultures separated from Earth.

Announced in April 2015, the post-apocalyptic title is set on Mars during the War of Water. The game features a dynamic conversation dialogue, and the story will change depending on choices and relationships with other characters.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2016/04/19/the-technomancer-pc-ps4-xbox-one-gameplay/feed/0Watch 5 minutes of gameplay from cyberpunk RPG The Technomancerhttp://www.vg247.com/2015/06/22/watch-5-minutes-of-gameplay-from-cyberpunk-rpg-the-technomancer/
http://www.vg247.com/2015/06/22/watch-5-minutes-of-gameplay-from-cyberpunk-rpg-the-technomancer/#respondMon, 22 Jun 2015 18:43:33 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=534916Today we get to have our first look at gameplay from cyberpunk RPG The Technomancer.

The Technomancer is post-apocalyptic cyberpunk RPG developed by Bound of Flame and Mars: War Logs developer Spiders. The game was announced back in April with the promise of an E3 reveal.

Today, we get to see five whole minutes of gameplay.

The footage below, courtesy of AGB, shows pre-alpha gameplay of a demo that was shown at E3.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2015/06/22/watch-5-minutes-of-gameplay-from-cyberpunk-rpg-the-technomancer/feed/0Bound By Flame PS4 impressions: foul-mouthed and brutal, but is it any good?http://www.vg247.com/2014/05/09/bound-by-flame-ps4-impressions-foul-mouthed-and-brutal-but-is-it-any-good/
http://www.vg247.com/2014/05/09/bound-by-flame-ps4-impressions-foul-mouthed-and-brutal-but-is-it-any-good/#commentsFri, 09 May 2014 07:35:46 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=469764Bound By Flame is the new action-RPG from Mars: War Logs developer Spiders. While it delivers a tough and mature take on the fantasy genre, can it roll with the big players like Skyrim and The Witcher? Dave Cook plays the final PS4 code to find out.

”I was certainly conflicted, and I guess that’s what a good, challenging moral decision should feel like in a game. Spiders clearly doesn’t want to blatantly sign-post your morality like Mass Effect’s Paragon or Renegade meters, but I’d maybe have liked a little more clarity on the matter.”

Dave’s over six hours into the PS4 version, so while these are impressions on the final code, these are purely his opinions on those first hours. As such, you can consider this article spoiler-free.

Is nothing safe from Game of Thrones? I mean, beards are back in fashion to the point that I want to lop mine off, dragons are fucking everywhere and I’m sick of people telling me to catch up with the TV show because I clearly don’t know what I’m missing. Clearly.

Why bring this up? Well, watchers of HBO’s fantasy show will know that the residents of Westeros have no qualms about dropping F-bombs and C-grenades at the drop of a sword, and that vibe seems to have made its way into Bound By Flame, a dark and violent RPG featuring characters who really need to get themselves a swear jar or three. At least that way they’d always have enough coin to buy new gear from the game’s over-priced merchants. Gouging bastards.

Developer Spiders seems to be going for a blend of Mass Effect and The Witcher in Bound By Flame. It’s set in the harrowing world of Vertiel which is being attacked by the ruthless Ice Lords, a troupe of necromancers and warriors from an ancient time who want nothing more but to see the land converted into a desolate, icy waste devoid of life. It’s a grim setting that – to the studio’s credit – really does feel as if it’s on the brink of ruin thanks to depressed NPC anecdotes and ravaged locales, but it all looks too dated to feel tangible.

As a last-ditch effort, a group known as the Red Scribes tries to harness the power of a demon to use against the Ice Lords. It all goes tits-up, naturally, and the entity ends up bound to your hero, a Freeborn Blades mercenary called Vulcan. It’s an interesting set-up, seeing as the demon is neither inherently evil nor interested in the plight of mortals, and it’ll offer you god-like power along the way in exchange for your humanity. That’s entirely your choice of course, but it’ll affect how others see you. I’m still not sure what its motives are.

”It’s a clunky, gruelling combat mechanic that I just know some RPG fans will enjoy due to its strategic nature, but I feel others will yearn for something a tad slicker. This is an entirely personal preference.”

There’s no clearly-defined ‘good or evil’ moral barometer in this game, so I was never quite sure where certain characters stood with me based on my actions.

As expected, they’ll bitch and moan at certain narrative junction points, like when I decided to join the Elven King in battle against the Ice Lords. Some of my companions threw the rattle out because they felt the monarch would betray me once the fight was through, while others assured me I had done the right thing.

I was certainly conflicted, and I guess that’s what a good, challenging moral decision should feel like in a game. Spiders clearly doesn’t want to blatantly sign-post your morality like Mass Effect’s Paragon or Renegade meters, but I’d maybe have liked a little more clarity on the matter, even to just put my own mind at ease. Evil or not, the demon does bestow Vulcan with fire magic that helps tip the odds in Bound By Flame’s challenging combat mechanic.

This is where The Witcher comparisons come into play, as battles are played out using a variety of stances and tricks to meet certain enemy types and scenarios. Whether I was fighting a small, mindless arachnid creature or throwing down with an intelligent and ruthless pack of enemies, I was relieved every time I made it out of an encounter alive. It’s seriously that hard on the upper difficulty levels, and one boss got so brutal in fact, that I had to switch from the third-hardest tier to easiest just to proceed.

It was a poorly designed encounter that suffered from having a boss that was too big in an area that was too small, to the point that his attacks were barely escapable. Even while blocking I was taking what appeared to be full damage with little feedback as to why this was happening. I suspect – because it was an ice-based enemy – that this was elemental damage, but the fact that I have to guess shows how unclear the rules are. It’s a scrappy combat mechanic at best.

Vulcan’s primary attack mode is sword-based, and sees him or her dishing out slow, powerful blows and using knee strikes to stagger shielded opponents. If you want to deploy faster strikes in rapid succession you can switch to a pair of daggers which also enable you to perform last-minute dodge manoeuvres, followed by a swift counter-attack. It’s fine on paper and I like the idea of having you switch methods mid-fight, but in practice there are several frayed ends in the mechanics that never knot together.

For example; the window between enemy attacks is so small that I couldn’t safely land a hit between blows using the slow, heavy sword. Parrying then countering doesn’t help either, so I found myself having to switch to my daggers just to get a few hits in, except they do so little damage that battles often became long, drawn-out affairs. While each victory feels hard-earned through sheer perseverance and anger, it’s not exactly what I’d call gratification, and the problem is multiplied when you have a gang of enemies forcing you into a corner.

”The male Vulcan sounds quite stoic at times, but all too often he comes out with cringe-worthy dialogue and reams of expletives. It’s all ‘fuck’ this and ‘we’re up to our asses in that,’ and this really does dent the credibility of what the cast are saying.”

The demon’s flame spells and crossbow bolts offer ranged attacks to help give you breathing room, but they also do little damage to begin with and feel redundant as a result. If you’re smart about it you can spring surprise dagger attacks using the fairly basic stealth mechanic, which can be useful for knocking a huge chunk of an enemy’s health away before the fight even begins, although this does alert all nearby enemies in the surrounding area to your whereabouts, rendering it near-useless.

It’s a clunky, gruelling combat mechanic that I just know certain RPG fans will enjoy, but I feel others will yearn for something much, much slicker. This is an entirely personal preference, yet I do like the fact that you can issue behavioural commands to your AI companions on top of this, such as relaying a heal order, having them block more often, or calling for full-on aggression.

This, along with being able to set traps in the environment, and all the mechanics mentioned previously makes for something that could have been a dense combat experience, but it just feels sloppy, like a pub brawl where everyone’s too sloshed to properly wield their swords. It’s not a hack-and-slash game by any means, and again I feel some people will actually like that fact.

While combat is a subjective issue, one glimmering positive is the crafting mechanic that – while hardly deep or inventive – does enable players to tailor weapons and gear with new properties. Adding poison resistance to a helm or increasing the critical chance of your blade is as simple as applying the correct materials into a crafting slot, and these buffs can be swapped out for others to help you meet certain challenges. It’s possible to remove ice resistance from your gear and swap it for flame defence when faced with a fire-spewing monster, for example. Best of all, you don’t need a crafting bench to make such changes.

I also liked the fact that you level up quite fast, thanks to generous XP rewards and an abundance of side-quests dotted around each area. If anything it makes you feel like you’re always being rewarded with new skill points and abilities for your actions, but most of these side tasks are menial, such as delivering a message or donating supplies to an ill-equipped doctor.

Others come with their own mid-bosses and stories that give more weight to the overarching world, but they never hit Fallout: New Vegas levels of relevance, imagination or excitement. It’s apparent that a lot of work has gone into fleshing out Vertiel’s lore, but it’s largely wasted thanks to the rote questing, dire acting and crummy dialogue.

The male Vulcan sounds quite stoic at times, but all too often he comes out with cringe-worthy dialogue and reams of expletives. It’s all ‘fuck’ this and ‘we’re up to our asses in that,’ and this really does dent the credibility of what the cast are saying. The female avatar suffers from far worse acting than her peer, and in a game that’s aiming to place narrative immersion and serious consequence at the fore, that’s an unfortunate error.

”I’d like to see more from this team, given the effort that’s gone into the world, the thoughtful – if not clumsy – combat system, and the interesting dynamic between Vulcan and his demonic partner.”

My partner also started her own campaign as the female Vulcan, and was quite puzzled and dismayed when all of the world’s NPCs and companions kept on referring to her character as male. This suggests that the addition of a female character option was more of an after-thought than an embedded feature. It’s a let-down that really shouldn’t fly these days.

Bound By Flame comes at that annual time where the big releases are starting to slow – save for Watch Dogs and a few other titles of course – and gamers will find themselves looking for something ‘off-beat’ to fill the gap. As its first big, expansive release, Spiders could have done much worse as a smaller studio, and while it’s clear this was never going to match juggernauts like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, it misses the mark on several common sense occasions.

I know the studio has several games under it belt already, but certainly nothing of this size, and that was in the back of my mind whenever I felt irritated by the combat or difficulty. Perhaps it bit off more than it could chew here, but I’d still like to see more from this team, should it ever be given a larger budget and better tools to work with.

I’m keen to press on and see where Vulcan and the demon’s inner conflict leads, and whether or not the entity truly is evil, so to that end I guess Bound By Flame has me invested, but it’s a rapidly diminishing interest.

Based on what I’ve said here, I hope that you’ll have a fairer idea of how you’ll approach it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go swear at a fucking mage or something.

Disclosure: to assist in writing this article, Koch Media send Dave a PS4 copy of Bound By Flame.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2014/05/09/bound-by-flame-ps4-impressions-foul-mouthed-and-brutal-but-is-it-any-good/feed/11Bound by Flame combat, enemies shown in PlayStation 4 gameplay videohttp://www.vg247.com/2014/04/04/bound-by-flame-combat-enemies-shown-in-playstation-4-gameplay-video/
http://www.vg247.com/2014/04/04/bound-by-flame-combat-enemies-shown-in-playstation-4-gameplay-video/#commentsFri, 04 Apr 2014 15:34:52 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=462494Bound by Flame has a new video available from Spiders Studio, which focuses on the game’s combat using in-game PlayStation 4 footage.

“This video is brand new and 100% pure gameplay – no special effects, no cutscenes,” said producer Walid Miled. “It should give you a little bit of a taste of the combat, before we release an epic combat trailer that covers all the combat mechanics and fighting styles.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2014/04/04/bound-by-flame-combat-enemies-shown-in-playstation-4-gameplay-video/feed/9Bound By Flame: what is the true price of ultimate power?http://www.vg247.com/2014/04/03/bound-by-flame-what-is-the-true-price-of-ultimate-power/
http://www.vg247.com/2014/04/03/bound-by-flame-what-is-the-true-price-of-ultimate-power/#commentsThu, 03 Apr 2014 07:38:02 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=461067Bound by Flame is the new morally-charged RPG from Mars: War Logs studio Spiders. Dave Cook talks with project manager Walid Miled about how the thirst for power can irreparably corrupt even the noblest of warriors.

”The moral slant is made more intriguing given that the player’s demonic partner isn’t actually evil. Its motivation is a mystery. The team were keen to avoid making this a choice between good and evil, but to keep things more ambiguous so that vital decisions would be less clear-cut.”

There are a lot of games that offer a degree of moral freedom. In the road to launch, we often hear a lot of hollow promises that players will face excruciating choices with far-reaching, profound ramifications, but in reality the bulk of these titles offer binary decisions with clear-cut outcomes.

It’s challenging to write and then develop a game that really nails the crushing duress that comes with a genuinely taxing conundrum, or those that reward moral inclination with tangible change within the world-state.

Fallout, The Walking Dead and Mass Effect are just a few series that go above and beyond the glut of transparent ‘good choice, bad choice’ games out there, but the point is that developers are certainly getting better at putting us on the spot, kicking us out of our comfort zones and watching us squirm as we stare down narrative junction points with no visible result in sight. We often make a call and soldier onward in the hope that our choice won’t come back to bite us further on into the tale.

That’s powerful from a story-telling perspective. Creators have recognised this and over the last ten years have become quite fiendish in the way they work morality into their games, and are now designing titles to give gamers a heightened degree of plot ownership. More than ever before we, the players, are the story-creators in essence, and that is a level of interaction and immersion other mediums simply cannot deliver. There are more developers using the interactivity of games in such a manner, and Bound by Flame team Spiders Studio is one of them.

Launching May 9, Bound by Flame is a new action-RPG set in the land of Vertiel; a dark realm that is being smothered by a wave of misery and death caused by the murderous Lords of Ice. After an ancient ritual goes horribly wrong, your hero becomes bound to a demonic spirit that tempts the player with god-like abilities at every juncture. While this power may help bring a degree of peace to the decaying world, the true price is your humanity. Just how far are you willing to sacrifice your very being? That’s the question Spiders want you to pain yourself over while playing.

”Similar to BioWare’s morally-charged Dragon Age and Mass Effect series, Spiders is working romance options into its RPG. The story itself will be both dark and mature in keeping with its harrowing setting.”

As you submit yourself to the entity your human appearance will give way to a monstrous veneer, and that’s when people around Vertiel and your companions will start to question who you are.

While speaking with project manager Walid Miled over Skype I was told that your fellow adventurers can leave at various points in the quest if they feel they can no longer trust you, and there’s also the risk of locking out sections of the plot altogether depending on your inclination. It sounds like a deeper format than your average binary experience.

“It was part of the core at the start,” Miled says of the moral system,” different endings, companions… how they react, how the quests lock and how other quests open. We had to go through all of this and make sure that the player gets a different feeling depending on the choices in the story, gameplay-wise, and so that the character really evolves visually. This has a real impact on the gameplay, so yeah it was really a core part of the game.”

The moral slant is made more intriguing given that the player’s demonic partner isn’t actually evil. Its motivation is a mystery. Miled and his team were keen to avoid making this a choice between good and evil, but to keep things more ambiguous so that vital decisions would be less clear-cut. Short-term advantages such as unlocking new combat options across the game’s three XP-based skill trees may sound tempting, but refusing to submit to the entity will have its own benefits as well. In the end you will end on one of three endings denoting human, demonic and neutral leanings.

“We encourage repeat play in many different ways, ” Miled goes on. “There’s the gameplay first, because you can really specialise your character’s… I could say class, but there are no classes in the game. It’s more about your skill tree because you have two fighting styles, so we encourage repeat play in the gameplay and fighting, but also choosing demon or human will make some characters stay and others leave, then there’s all those different endings. When the player starts over they can have a totally renewed experience.”

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2014/04/03/bound-by-flame-what-is-the-true-price-of-ultimate-power/feed/5Bound By Flame Xbox achievements listed in full – spoilershttp://www.vg247.com/2014/03/27/bound-by-flame-xbox-achievements-listed-in-full-spoilers/
http://www.vg247.com/2014/03/27/bound-by-flame-xbox-achievements-listed-in-full-spoilers/#commentsThu, 27 Mar 2014 12:03:19 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=460268Bound By Flame’s full Xbox One and 360 achievement list has appeared online ahead of the RPG’s May 9 launch in Europe. Developer Spiders Studio’s is also bringing the game to PC, PS3 and PS4.

Weapons, traps, ammunition, potions or armour -which could have up to three upgradable slots, can all be crafted.

The game will have different crafting talents, depending on the player’s choice. Higher levels of those talents will allow the player to consume less material and also find more materiel in chests etc..

Head over to the PS Blog for more details about the crafting disciplines, such as Vulcan, weapon and armour crafting.

Bound by Flame will be released in early 2014 on PC, PS3, PS4 and Xbox 360.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2014/03/10/bound-by-flame-spiders-studio-details-the-rpgs-crafting-system/feed/1Bound by Flame video gives you an overview of the game’s featureshttp://www.vg247.com/2014/02/13/bound-by-flame-video-gives-you-an-overview-of-the-games-features/
http://www.vg247.com/2014/02/13/bound-by-flame-video-gives-you-an-overview-of-the-games-features/#commentsThu, 13 Feb 2014 20:43:10 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=448404Bound by Flame, the RPG in the works at Spiders Studio for PS3 and PS4, has a video available, giving you a look at it in action. The game is slated for a Q2 2014. The trailer gives you an overview of some the game’s important features. Watch below.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2014/02/13/bound-by-flame-video-gives-you-an-overview-of-the-games-features/feed/2Mars: War Logs update fixes English localization issue, is 33% off on Steam todayhttp://www.vg247.com/2013/06/18/mars-war-logs-update-fixes-english-localization-issue-is-33-off-on-steam-today/
http://www.vg247.com/2013/06/18/mars-war-logs-update-fixes-english-localization-issue-is-33-off-on-steam-today/#commentsTue, 18 Jun 2013 13:21:02 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=379987Mars: War Logs was released in late April on PC and the console versions were to follow soon, however, developer Spider Studio held off onthe release in order to fix English localization issues which plagued the PC release.

According to Luc Heninger, director of production for the game’s publisher, Focus Home Interactive, the actual game was “thoroughly tested and released with very few bugs on PC,” but the procedures for the audio and text QA failed and allowed many English localization issues to slip through.

“The result was so far removed from what we usually produce that we took the decision to halt the submission process for the console version, which was due for release only weeks after the PC title,” he said.

“We have re-written the game text and dialog and, of course, recorded the actors again, replacing the sections that weren’t true to the characters in Mars. All these problems will therefore be fixed in the console version. ”

An update is now available for players with the PC game, which also incorporates the new audio in the version.

A video posted below featuring the new localization and the new English voices present in all versions of the game.

Mars: War Logs is currently available on PC and will be today’s Daily Deal on Steam, at 33% off.

The game is scheduled for release on Xbox Live and PSN in September 2013.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2013/06/18/mars-war-logs-update-fixes-english-localization-issue-is-33-off-on-steam-today/feed/1Mars War Logs video give you an overview of the gamehttp://www.vg247.com/2013/04/17/mars-war-logs-video-give-you-an-overview-of-the-game/
http://www.vg247.com/2013/04/17/mars-war-logs-video-give-you-an-overview-of-the-game/#commentsWed, 17 Apr 2013 21:07:46 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=359491Want to know all there is to know about Mars War Logs? You’re in luck: a video made especially for you is below, giving you plenty of background information along with some gameplay footage. The Spiders Studio-developed game will be released on PC, PSN and XBLA this spring.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2013/04/17/mars-war-logs-video-give-you-an-overview-of-the-game/feed/1Bound by Flame in the works from Mars Wars Log developershttp://www.vg247.com/2013/03/02/bound-by-flame-in-the-works-from-mars-wars-log-developers/
http://www.vg247.com/2013/03/02/bound-by-flame-in-the-works-from-mars-wars-log-developers/#commentsSat, 02 Mar 2013 18:57:24 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=345591Mars Wars Log developer Spiders Studio, has announced a its action-RPG Bound by Flame will be released towards the end of the year.

Bound by Flame has the players taking on the role of a mercenary possessed by a flame demon, and they will have to choose between the powers offered or rejecting said influence to become more of a hero than the demon’s pawn.

Set in a dark fantasy world, players will be tempted to gain more power by offering up part of their soul to said demon, and progression of the demonic influence will be reflected by the transformation of the hero’s body. Think evil vs good in Fable. The player will also be able to fully customize their character’s looks, gender, facial features and more.

Choices made by the player and the influence of the demon will affect the game, and this will be reflected by chapters offering different scenarios and experience based on these decisions and actions.

Players will engage in real-time combat, and start off with knowledge of fire magic, and assassination, but will them be able to specialize more by unlocking and improving skills and powers through the three available skill trees.

A crafting system will be includes, and players can take on companions to aide in their quest, and which character joins will also be based on character actions. Players will be able to develop friendships, romance or rivalries.

The first screenshots for the game has been released, and shows off the Swamp Beast, which is just one of the many enemies encountered in the game such as: shadow dragons, liches, undead, ice creatures and more.

Bound by Flame is slated for release on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 at the end of 2013.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2013/03/02/bound-by-flame-in-the-works-from-mars-wars-log-developers/feed/1Mars War Logs video shows off the game’s combat systemhttp://www.vg247.com/2013/02/27/mars-war-logs-video-shows-off-the-games-combat-system/
http://www.vg247.com/2013/02/27/mars-war-logs-video-shows-off-the-games-combat-system/#commentsWed, 27 Feb 2013 20:27:14 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=344546A new Mars War Logs trailer has been released showing off the game’s combat system.

You could call the new video a two and a half minute “survival guide,” as it explained the combat system and choice of melee and ranged attack skills.

The video also takes a glimpse at the three skill trees, which will allow players to specialize in the aforementioned range or melee specialties.